


And No One Tells You Where You Went Wrong

by Princessfbi



Series: Waving Through A Window [2]
Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: Abandonment Issues, Anxiety, Buck's Got A Date, Complicated Relationships, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Evan "Buck" Buckley Needs A Hug, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Insecure Evan "Buck" Buckley, Insecurity, Maddie Buckley is a Good Sister, Minor Injuries, Mother's Day, Mother-Son Relationship, Old Ladies Love Buck, POV Multiple, Protective Athena Grant, Protective Siblings, Protective Team, Rescue Missions, Team as Family, Toxic Parental Relationships - Freeform, Whumptine 2020, Worried Firefam, nervous tics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-31
Updated: 2020-05-31
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:33:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24479530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Princessfbi/pseuds/Princessfbi
Summary: Buck opened his mouth in surprise.“It’s not what it looks like,” he said with what had become their own private joke.“Oh, so you mean to tell me you didn’t try to recreate a scene from Spider-Man on the side of a cliff?”"I don't know what that means," Buck said with a frown.Somewhere in Los Angeles, Chimney was having a stroke.
Relationships: Athena Grant/Bobby Nash, Evan "Buck" Buckley & Athena Grant, Evan "Buck" Buckley & Maddie Buckley, Henrietta "Hen" Wilson/Karen Wilson, Maddie Buckley/Howie "Chimney" Han
Series: Waving Through A Window [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1721746
Comments: 21
Kudos: 373
Collections: 9-1-1 Tales





	And No One Tells You Where You Went Wrong

_“911, what’s your emergency?”_

_…_

_“Hello?”_

_… …_

_“Hello? Is anybody there?”_

* * *

When Maddie had been a teenager, she’d gone through a phase where she was obsessed with sundresses. Old sundresses that were made out of cotton and had patterns that reminded Buck of his grandma’s table clothes. She would find them at vintage shops or in small independent stores she would visit when she would go with her friends into Harrisburg to get away from the small town meets tourist trap that was Hershey. Buck still had flashes of memories of Maddie in his life from when he was four or five and one of those memories was the way she would twirl him around, laughing, while the hem of her old lady dress printed with flowers spun with them. Her shoulders were always sun kissed with small freckles that would creep up her neck and he could remember feeling like he could hide in her arms for forever.

He didn’t really know why the card in his hand made him feel like he wanted to hide against her again. Didn't really know why it had the power to make him feel so small again. The front reminded him of one of those dresses she always used to wear and he didn’t realize he missed those dresses until he thought of it.

She’d stopped wearing them when Doug told her they made her look childish.

When he’d originally seen the front of the card, a soft orange cover with a painting of a pressed sunflower on the front, he’d smiled and remembered those dresses. Most kids had superhero capes but Buck had the hem of a linen dress lined with lace.

But when he opened the card and read it, the simple words made the ground shift a little beneath his feet in a way that had his head spinning and his stomach twisting in knots.

“Mom?” Maddie frowned, reading the card. “That’s weird.”

“Tell me about it.” Buck muttered.

He watched as Maddie reread the words, analyzing like she did most things, before flipping it over to see if anything was on the back.

“Hey,” Buck said, shifting in his seat. “Have you been keeping her posted on me or something?”

It shouldn’t bother him that his sister was telling their mother updates about his life but it did. More than the idea that his mother wasn’t checking in with him herself... but he was used to that by now.

Well… he was until he opened his mail to receive a card that kind of threw his worldview into a loop.

Maddie’s frown deepened as she shook her head. “Not really. Nothing except the whole 'he’s in the hospital. He’s out of the hospital.' Last we spoke was when one of my boxes from the house got sent to her by mistake.”

Buck curled his bottom lip to roll between his teeth as he dropped his head down. So, not about him.

That was good.

But it also stung in a way he thought he was over.

“Her handwriting doesn’t even look the same anymore.” Maddie was still frowning as she handed the card back to him.

Buck shrugged. “I wouldn’t really know.”

Something in Maddie’s expression took a turn towards pity and he quickly shoveled some of the eggs cooling on his plate into his mouth.

He shouldn’t have said anything. He shouldn’t have even brought it up.

His mom sent him a card. Big deal.

‘ _So proud of your recovery! Love, Mom’_

That was it. Nothing that warranted a spike in anxiety and an itch that didn't seem to want to settle beneath his skin. 

“Buck,” Maddie said in that way where his name clipped against her lips when she was upset.

He was spinning in circles over nothing. It was nothing.

“Do people even send cards anymore?” He asked from behind a mouth full of food that never failed to get her to smile a little.

Maddie tossed a napkin at his head and speared a piece of pineapple from the farmer’s market with her fork. For a few blissful moments, they ate in comfortable silence. He couldn’t really believe it’d only been a few days since the doctor finally gave him a complete clean bill of health.

No more metal he could have sworn he felt moving against his bones as it rattled with each step he took.

No more crush trauma precautions.

No more worry of throwing another blood clot.

And despite what he’d told everyone until he was blue in the face, Buck still had been worried at every little inhale that hitched in his chest. The last thing he wanted--- _needed---_ was to have his own body try to tell everyone that he wasn’t capable.

_Wasn’t good enough._

No. No, he wasn’t going to spin in that downward circle. Being a firefighter was his life and he was a damn good one at that. It was just weird feeling like he’d been carrying all of this weighted anticipation for something that didn’t happen only to be told he could drop it. His arms felt heavy and sore but so incredibly good.

“Well,” Maddie said from behind a piece of bacon that greased her fingers. “Regardless of the card, I’m very proud of you.”

Buck couldn’t help but smile back at her. He knew she was, it’d been the whole reason they were having a celebratory breakfast before the beginning of his twenty-four hour shift, but it felt good to hear someone else say it.

To hear someone else say that it was okay for him to move on.

Speaking of which…

“Hey,” Buck said, stealing a piece of bacon off her plate and grinning when he ate it before she could stop him. “Can I borrow that fancy board thing you put cheese on?”

“My charcuterie board?”

“Sure?” Buck shrugged.

If there was one person that could get Buck to squirm, it was his sister and she knew it because Maddie’s eyes were narrowing with suspicion. “Why do you need a charcuterie board?” 

She studied him for a moment and Buck tried to find anywhere else to look at than at her because he was just not awake enough to deal with her prying. But then her eyes widened and her gasp echoed throughout his loft. 

“Do you have a date?”

Buck flushed faster than he thought possible as the heat from his face crawled all the way up to the tips of his ears.

“No,” he lied.

But Maddie pointed her fork at him with a smile that was growing wider in a matter of seconds. “You have a date.”

Buck tried to distract her again by stealing more of her bacon but she smacked his hand without taking her eyes off of him.

“Who is it?” She asked.

“No one,” he lied again and squirmed even more when her smile turned into a smirk.

“So, I know them!”

“You don’t know them!”

“So, then tell me!”

“ _Maddie.”_ He did not whine. He didn’t. “Can I borrow the board or what?”

Maddie said nothing as she stared at him. Her brow arched high on her forehead and he knew that quirk of her lips. She was waiting for more details and if it weren’t for the fact that he really wanted things to go perfectly, he would’ve let her continue to wonder.

He caved. “Look, it’s not a big deal. We’ve only been on like three or four dates.”

Maddie clasped her hands together and didn’t even bother to hide her excitement.

“And now you’re moving towards the dinner at home stage.”

Buck shrugged. “I guess so?”

“Buck! You really like them. I haven’t seen you this dopey since you were living in your ex-girlfriend’s apartment like a ghost.”

“Ouch, Mads.”

Maddie snorted. “Well, you were.”

Buck flipped some of his eggs with his fork, feeling his stomach twist with the nerves that had fluttered in his chest every chance they got whenever he thought about how he wanted things to go right. They'd agreed to keep everything low stakes and just see how things went but... he really wanted it to go well. 

“I just… I don’t want to mess this up. I want it to be nice. So, can I borrow the cheese board?”

“The charcuterie board.” She corrected because she lived to make his life difficult.

“Oh my God, whatever!”

“Yes, you may. I’ll have Chim bring it to your shift.” Maddie stole another piece of pineapple and Buck retaliated by taking the last piece of cantaloupe. 

“Thank you.”

Maddie nodded and clasped her hands together. “Now, what kind of cheese are you thinking of putting on it?”

“I don’t know. Probably some pepper jack or something.”

* * *

_“118, 118 for Dispatch.”_

_“This is Captain Nash. Go ahead, Dispatch.”_

_“Be advised. Fall detection systems have been activated as well as medical alert button. Faller is Dorothea Bea. She’s conscious and alert.”_

_“Copy.”_

* * *

Pepper jack, it turns out, was not good enough for Maddie’s charcuterie board and a post it note with her pretty cursive was attached when Chim delivered the board at the beginning of their shift.

“Not so tragically single anymore!” Chim announced over their comms as the hot spring air rushed through the truck. “What will Josh say when he finds out you left the club, Buck?”

Buck squirmed in his seat in that way he did when the weight of attention was too suffocating in the close proximity of the cab. A blush pulled up into his cheeks as he glared at Chim and normally Chim would feel bad but… Nope. He didn’t feel bad in the slightest.

“You got a hot date, Buck?” Bobby asked from the captain’s seat and trying not to sound too invested.

Bobby had been barely able to hold himself back from creating a flight pattern for his hovering but Chim had seen all the tight looks and concerned frowns that captain had thrown his way whenever Buck wasn’t looking. He’d been the same with Chim for a while after Tatiana.

 _“As a captain, you can protect us from a lot of things, Bobby,”_ Chim had said one late night when neither of them could sleep during a twenty-four hour shift. _“But no one can shield you from heartbreak. It’s always going to sting.”_

 _“Doesn’t mean I can’t still try,”_ Bobby had hummed.

“Hot enough to borrow his sister’s charcuterie board,” Eddie answered for him with a smug smirk. 

Buck glared at Eddie’s betrayal all in good fun but then he peered out the window and rubbed a distracted thumb on the spotted birthmark above his eye.

Chim frowned. It’d been a while since he’d seen that little nervous tic of Buck’s.

_“I still can’t believe your parents rescheduled two days before their flight. The airline fees alone!”_

_Maddie made a noise at the back of her throat. “Don’t be surprised. My guess is they didn’t even buy their tickets.”_

_Maddie’s stride didn’t even break as she moved from cabinet to table, placing plates and utensils down for dinner._

_“Hey, I know you guys aren’t close but how come you aren’t upset?” Chim asked._

_Buck had been a mess for days, attached to his phone and asking Hen for all different kinds of recommendations every chance he could. It wasn’t until Bobby had brought Buck into a shift covered in bruises and missing a Jeep that the constant jittery nervous energy seemed to take a breather._

_“My parents… they’re a bit flaky, I guess. I learned a long time ago to not get my hopes up.”_

_It was harsh in the bluntness but Maddie was never harsh to be cruel. Chim felt a curl of understanding settle in his chest. She was used to it and something about that made Chim feel just a little sorry for her._

_He was practically the poster boy for absent parents, after all._

_“Still,” Chim said with a grimace. “Your brother seemed pretty stressed. I swear, I thought I saw that birth mark move with how many times he was rubbing it.”_

_Maddie smiled one of those small smiles she had were her nose wrinkled along the bridge and Chim’s heart did a little loop every time he saw it._

_“Yeah, that would be my fault. When he was little, the other kids used to tease him about it. I told him that they were just jealous that they didn’t have a good luck charm like he did. I guess it’s just a nervous tic now.”_

Maybe he’d ask Maddie about it later. He knew Buck could twist himself up in all sorts of knots when he was left alone but a date shouldn’t be anything that he worked himself up over. God only knows he’d been on enough of them. The last time he’d seen Buck that nervous over a date, Bobby was helping him with his tie to go have dinner with Abby.

But then again, he did end up in the ambulance during that one so maybe Chim could understand a little. 

“Hen’s going to be mad she missed a Dottie call,” Chim said, taking pity on him and changing the subject.

“A what?” Eddie asked.

“Not a what. A who.” Bobby corrected. “Miss Dottie. She’s a frequent faller.”

“You’ll like her,” Buck added. “She’s like the nicest old lady.”

“Buck’s only saying that because he’s her favorite,” Chim said and Buck somehow managed to be both bashful and smug at the same time.

They jumped out of the truck when they pulled in front of the familiar bungalow. Dottie refused to move out and into an assisted living home but when you lived in the same place for almost fifty years, Chim could understand why it would be hard to give it up. 

“You’re up, Buck,” Bobby said, taking a step back and letting Buck take the lead.

Buck knocked on the door and opened the front door with ease. “Miss Dottie?”

“Is that my Buck?”

Chim shared a glance at Eddie and rolled his eyes. 

Dottie had been honored when she found out that she was one of Buck’s first calls right after the academy and had latched onto him the same way a mother cat latched onto a lost kitten.

It’d been a nice change of pace to see Buck gently charming his way with one of their older guests instead of the brazen charging speed he seemed to approach everything those first few months.

“Hi Miss Dottie,” Buck said as he rounded the corner to her sitting room.

The old woman was crumpled on the ground between her chair and her foot stool with one slipper missing.

“Miss Dottie,” Chim said as he leaned down to assess her for any injuries. “What happened? You miss the chair?”

“Slipped out from under me,” she said with a cluck of her tongue.

A frail hand lifted and patted Buck’s forearm until he took it in his own. Buck wasn’t much help in assessing her injuries when Chim was on scene so he kept out of the way enough until they would need him to help lift her.

“How are you doing? Should you be up on your leg?” She asked Buck with a tap of her fingers on his hand. 

“I’m good. Doing a lot better now that I get to see you.”

“You’re sweet. Is Bobby making my sandwich?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Eddie said with a nod as he came back into the living room from the kitchen where Bobby was putting together her sandwich to bring up her blood sugar.

Miss Dottie’s wide green eyes landed on Eddie before a coy smile curled on her face.

“Who are you? I don’t remember you from the last time.”

Eddie dropped down to a crouch and pulled on some gloves to help Chim. “Eddie Diaz, ma’am.”

“Ma’am?” Dottie scoffed, patting Eddie’s leg with her other hand. “You don’t have to call me ma’am. Makes me think of my mother. Call me Dottie.”

“Were you feeling any dizziness? Did you bump your head?” Chim asked, checking through her soft thin hair for any blood or bumps.

“I don’t think so,” Dottie said with a frown. “My behind caught the most of it.”

“Do you mind if I check to make sure you don’t have any hip injury?” Eddie asked and then pressed down to make sure there wasn’t any breaks when she nodded.

“He’s very handsome,” Dottie feigned whispered to Buck with a nod to Eddie.

And Buck and Chim definitely did not snicker when Eddie’s face pinked a little at the attention.

They absolutely did.

* * *

When Hen had been able to finally pull into the station after Denny’s Mother’s Day breakfast/lunch at school, the bays had been empty and the rafters too quiet for her liking. Her team were loud and obnoxious boys that were constantly making noise even in their sleep and it just felt eerie with all the stifling silence of an empty fire house.

But the unexpected delivery was just too good to pass up and Hen was reclining in her seat at the table with her cup of coffee and a smug preparedness as the truck backed up through the garage doors. Teasing her team was easy but she always loved a good prop. 

“Hen!” Chim called as he jogged up the stairs. “You missed Miss Dottie. She sends her love.”

“How was your Mother’s Day breakfast?” Eddie asked.

“Sweet.” Hen grinned. “Adorable but also very sticky. There was maple syrup everywhere.”

“Abuela said Christopher’s class went crazy with the sprinkles. She sent me a picture of what I think is a donut but the gummy worms sort of made it look like something died.”

Hen choked out a laugh. Hen and Karen had offered to play double duty for the Mother’s Day festivities at Christopher’s school after Eddie confessed about his worry for Chris being one of the few kids that wouldn’t have a mom to have breakfast with but Isabel Diaz had beat them too it.

“Whoa,” Buck said as he spied the colorful bouquet sitting beside her. “Why does it look like your bouquet melted? Did they make you like play dough flowers or something?”

Hen sighed in feigned devastation as she took in the sad bouquet. The icing had started to melt against the cellophane turning what was probably a sunflower or a bee into a dumpster Picasso of yellow and smudged black.

“They're cookies and they aren’t mine.” Hen sipped her coffee with a smug lift of her chin. “You got something you want to tell us, Buckaroo?”

Buck’s face flushed red. “Those are for me?”

And it stilled amazed her that someone who could be such a ham with a slathering of ego to boot, could get so flustered when attention zeroed in on him. Buck liked being looked at but Buck didn’t like people _looking_ at him. It was exhausting but he’d always been that way. Even when he’d lost that kid on the rollercoaster and the commissioner had to all but forced Buck to talk to the reporters after the attention he received when the news crew cornered him on scene.

That’d been harder on him than he would ever admit but they all saw. They had eyes.

But someone had gone to great lengths to send Buck something ridiculous and loud and valiantly colorful and Hen wasn't about to pass up a good opportunity to snoop and join in the fun. 

“It’s not your birthday,” Eddie said with a frown.

Chim’s grin could have probably broke his face as he slapped Buck on the shoulder who still hadn’t moved from his spot and Bobby looked nauseated at all the dripping sugar. Hen broke off a piece of what she was pretty sure was an elephant at one point.

“I liberated one of these sad looking cookies as a preemptive Happy Mother’s Day to me from you.”

Buck frowned. “But you’re not my mom.”

“Correct. Doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy the benefits.” Hen sat back in her seat and decided to give Buck a little slack before his head exploded. She could see the gears shifting, trying to figure out who and why he suddenly had a mess of sugar and icing addressed to him, and if they didn’t stop teasing him soon she was sure Buck was going to drive himself--- and the rest of them--- crazy trying to figure it out.

She lifted a sealed card and held it out to him. 

“Well, Buckaroo, sharing is caring,” Chim said as he reached for a globby… Hen wasn’t even sure what it was supposed to be.

“Why don’t you ask if he wants to share first, Chim,” Bobby said but Buck was waving his hand as he peeled open the envelope. 

“Go ahead, Chim.”

Hen grimaced as the sugar from the cookie made her coffee too sweet in her mouth and ignored the way Chim viciously attacked his cookie. She watched as Buck pulled out the note and caught the way his face fell before he could catch it at whatever he read. Suddenly, the sugar cookies turned sour in her stomach and she frowned into her cup.

She’d been expecting Buck to be insufferable and maybe even a little embarrassed that someone decided to send him something sweet on a random Thursday. What she hadn’t been expecting was the conflicted devastation that had pinched his face and swallowed the color from it. Buck cleared his throat and flattened his expression before anyone else could see but Hen had caught it.

“I’m going to go…Uh…” Buck said, folding the note and tucking it into his pocket. “Enjoy the cookies, you guys.”

And then he was gone as he all but jumped down the stairs and across the bay.

* * *

Buck stared down at the two notes in his hand and willed them to say something more; something different.

_To my brave boy. XO Mom_

The card was handwritten too. Not even typed like most companies sent whenever someone ordered flowers or whatever online. Meaning she had to have actively gone instead the store and written it herself. 

“Hey,” Hen said, her voice soft like it got whenever she could see through him.

Hen always saw through him even during the mess that'd been the lawsuit. 

_"That was some kind of stupid,"_ she'd texted him after the disaster that was the arbitration even though they'd all been told to stay clear of Buck. _"But I'm sorry you're hurting so much."_

He didn’t even know why he thought he could hide from her in the locker room of all places. She sat down beside him wordlessly and bumped her shoulder against his. He could hear her question even if she didn’t ask it and held the card out for her to read.

“The cookies were from your mom?” She asked after she read the card.

Buck swallowed past the dry sandpaper that had lodged against his vocal chords.

God, he was being so stupid. It was a couple of cards from his mom. One was weird but two… two made everything spin in that uncomfortable shift away from his center of gravity.

“You never talk about your mom.” Hen pressed.

Buck shrugged, rubbing his hands together. “Not much to talk about.”

And there wasn’t. She was his mom, sure, and he loved her. Maybe. It was complicated. He’d had a lot of resentment issues after Maddie left and it was easier to take them out on his mom than Maddie but… His mom never really tried either. It would've been easier if his mom had resented him right back. But instead she just... wasn't bothered by the fact that her son was so upset with her. She carried on with her life like Buck's feelings weren't even worth considering and worse it made him feel like a bully. She made him feel like the bad guy for being upset and ignored him, saying he was being irrational and a brat. Then when he pretended was everything fine, she just accepted it and moved on. When she wasn't picking on every little thing he did, she just ignored him. 

No one said anything when his parents didn’t come to his promotional ceremony from probational firefighter and he’d been fine celebrating with his friends. By the time anything major happened like the ladder truck bombing, Maddie was back in his life, so…

“I don’t know how to feel,” Buck blurted out. 

He didn’t. He’d gotten so used to only hearing his mom’s voice on an occasional phone call or seeing an update on Facebook. Suddenly having her imprint in his hands made his skin feel raw and a tiredness he hadn’t felt in a while oozed into his muscles.

The urge to hide away from those words crept up along the back of his neck again.

Was he overwhelmed? Was he… hopeful?

His mom was always pretty straight forward even when she was being passive aggressive but the note and the card… he didn’t know how to read those.

“Buck,” Hen called and pulled him out of his thought again. “I can see you thinking too much in that big brain of yours. This could just mean she was trying to do something nice.”

Nice. Buck couldn’t really remember the last time his mom did anything _nice_ for him.

One on hand, it made him as independent as he was.

On the other… how nice could it be if all it served to do was send him spiraling in a mess of mixed signals.

“Most people would say I don’t think enough,” Buck quipped because he wasn’t sure he wanted to spin that deep down that particular rabbit hole.

“I think you overthink things,” Hen said with that exasperated expression only she could perfect. “ _To death.”_

Buck snorted. That must have been what she was trying to get him to do because her face broke out into the small victorious smile she only got when she could pull him out of his moods. She may not be the mother of the house but she sure did know how to drag all of them to dry land whenever their thoughts threatened to drown them.

Maybe she was right. Maybe there wasn’t anything to it. Maybe his mom was just trying to be nice no matter how weird that was.

“In all seriousness,” she added. “Do you want me to get rid of them? Because I will gladly drop those dry as hell cookies in the dumpster for you.”

Hen had been the only one to openly acknowledge her indignation at Buck’s parents cancelling their trip last minute. Well, her and Athena but that was only because Athena had been helping Buck pull together the mess of his life to at least come off as a somewhat functional and presentable human being. Thankfully, everyone else left Buck alone to swim out of the embarrassment after he’d basically had to tell Bobby ‘nevermind’ in regards to his time off he’d requested for their trip.

 _“They’re your parents, Buck,”_ Hen had said. _“I’m sure they love you and I respect that… But you’re too loveable to hold onto a grudge so I’m going to do that for you.”_

She’d been trying to get him to laugh but Hen had that scary way of being dead serious even when she was joking.

“Nah,” Buck said, shaking his head. “Let the others have them.”

The alarm blared to life around them and sent his heart into his throat in that indescribable way where his adrenaline raced through his veins. Hen handed him his card and he folded it around the orange one with the flower on it before tossing them into his locker.

Whatever his mom was trying to tell him, it could wait until after his shift.

* * *

Bobby wasn't worried per say but he was... conscious of the fact that Buck was feeling a little off. He knew from Athena that he was stressed about his big date--- the details she'd been sworn to secrecy and wouldn't even divulge to him--- and that when Buck got stressed he would get a little wrapped up in his own head. But he'd seen the cards Buck had thrown into his locker with a little more force than necessary as they hurried to the trucks and Hen had given him a pointed look when she made the cookies disappear. He didn't know what the cookie bouquet could've done to make Buck so upset but it'd been enough to throw off one of his best firefighters. 

But Buck also turned into a black hole of sorts when he got upset. When he was so invested in something where the stakes were higher in Buck's head than they were to everyone else, Buck just took on everything that was thrown at him. Like he was too caught up putting all his efforts into something else, that he didn't have the energy to guard himself from anything else. Not that his work slacked or anything. Firefighting was Buck's nature. It was who he was all the way through to his core. For some of them, the love of the job was what got them up in the morning. Bobby had been that way once too. He had loved his family and everything he did, he did for them. But... the siren song of a higher calling could be as intoxicating and it could be comforting. Bobby had let it consume him too much and he worried all the time that it would do the same to Buck. 

_"It's not just the job, Bobby,"_ Buck had said when they sat down to have a real discussion about what sent Buck into a panicked spiral after the lawsuit. _"It's you guys. When I thought... when the possibility of not being able to be with you guys the-the team... It was like I couldn't even figure out a reason to get out of bed anymore."_

The admission had made Bobby breathless but he knew. He understood. He worried but if Buck was willing to make the effort then so was Bobby. It screamed against everything instinct to brace for impact when it came to Buck barreling into life headfirst but he tried.

But that still didn't mean he didn't have Buck's back. He didn't know what happened for Buck to think he had to just take things like he deserved it but Bobby was his captain and it was his job to protect his team.

The caller was shouting in Buck's face, furious because Buck had to cut through a custom job to free his hand from the trappings of his engine and his girlfriend's hair that had gotten caught when she'd tried to help him out. Nothing Buck said or did was going to deescalate the situation. 

"Sir, I---" Buck started, withdrawn and just taking the berating, but then the man grabbed him by his turnout coat and _shoved_ him so hard he stumbled back. 

Eddie and Chimney were on them in a matter of seconds, Eddie pushing himself in front of Buck with a furious expression and Chim catching Buck before he could topple over. But Bobby was faster.

"Unless you want to be charged with felony assault, I suggest you back up," Bobby said in a low tone. 

"Felony?" The man spat out in disbelief. "I barely touched him!"

"Bobby, I---" Buck started but Bobby shook his head. 

"I'd be more than happy to have a couple of police officers here to discussion the details of the law preventing you from attacking first responders but I'm willing to bet your girlfriend would rather have you with her than watch you walk away in handcuffs."

The man fumed and threw a nasty glare at Buck before he stormed away to where Hen was assessing for any head trauma on his girlfriend's scalp. Hen shot him with an unimpressed glare of her own before going back to focus on her work. 

"I'm sorry, Bobby," Buck said when Bobby turned around and Chim and Eddie left them to finish packing up the truck. 

Bobby shook his head before Buck's frown could deepen. He clapped Buck on the shoulder and turned him back towards the truck. 

"You did your job, Buck. Nothing to apologize for."

* * *

_“911, what’s your emergency?”_

_“Oh my God! She fell!”_

_“Who fell?”_

_“Courtney! She was taking a picture and she fell! Is she dead?”_

_“Ma’am? I need to know your location.”_

_“Holy shit!”_

* * *

It’d become a tradition--- _superstition_ Hen would argue--- that whenever Buck and Eddie had to be separated on a job, they would bounce their wrists against each other. Fist bumps were too erratic because half the time they were wearing gloves and the cross contamination would make them pointless. But a bump of wrist against wrist was a must. A reminder of sorts that the other expected the other one to do their best to stay alive.

It was small but from how far Eddie and Buck had come, it was monumental.

And it was with that bump that his mind knew to turn off his spinning of cards and cookie bouquets and his mom. With the wrist bump, Buck was able to hold onto a moment of clarity that his best friend always seemed to have and focus on the job. 

“All set, Buck?” Bobby asked into his radio, leaning over the curb to map out Buck’s descent. “I don’t like the looks of this cliff face so let’s get her off as quick as we can.”

“Got it, Cap!”

“Line’s secure,” Eddie added.

Buck read a report once that almost three hundred people died between 2011 and 2017 while trying to take a selfie with a selfie stick. Most of those were from falling from heights, too focused on getting the perfect angle to notice a misstep, while others were from drowning and he was pretty sure he even saw something about a grenade.

It was kind of crazy that it was more common than shark attacks.

 _“Please don’t tell her that, Buck,”_ Bobby had said in the truck.

Though, he supposed, he could understand the appeal. Courtney and her friends had somehow managed to find a secluded trail where cliffside met untouched beach and endless ocean line that met the dimming sunset on the horizon.

“Please hurry!” Courtney cried.

“I’m almost there! Just keep holding on!”

Buck had to be careful not to dislodge any rocks as he descended. By some miracle, Courtney had saved her own life by managing to wrap her arm around a jagged edge of the cliffside but she couldn’t have been more then 5’2” and a hundred seventy pounds soaking wet. She was running on adrenaline but her arms were mere minutes away from giving out. The plan had been fast and quick. Repelling gave him a little more wiggle room to maneuver so that he could improvise if he needed to, to grab her the moment she was in reach.

“I can’t! I can’t!”

Courtney’s sobs were louder than the crashing waves below and Buck bit his lip as he pushed himself a little faster.

“Yes, you can! I’m almost there!”

There’s a lot of things Buck thoroughly enjoyed about his job. Like smashing things. He was not ashamed to admit that he can get a little carried away when Bobby hands him the hammer and tells him go. But hey, he was working on the self-restraint thing.

But if you had told him he could put his rock-climbing skills to good use to be a firefighter, he would’ve skipped the SEALs all together. He’d gotten into climbing around the same time he’d gotten into swimming in high school. Pennsylvania was a flat state that smelled like cow shit and had the occasional Amish community with amazing pies. But he was three hours away from Allegheny National Forest and five hours away from Monogahela. The drive in the beat-up Volvo with the few classmates he hung out with was worth it when they were able to lose themselves in the thick of the West Virginia woods with nothing but their climbing gear and some snacks to get them through the hike.

Climbing was Buck’s specialty and he was the fastest out of the team. So, down he went.

He could see the blood on Courtney’s arms as he got closer and watched as the quivering in her shoulders increased as her strength threatened to give out.

“Courtney,” Buck said as he descended the last few feet. “My name’s Buck. I’m going to come up behind you and grab you. Don’t try to help me until I tell you, okay?”

But Courtney didn’t respond as her sobbing turned into heaving gasps. He needed to pick up the pace. If her arms didn’t give out, her hyperventilating was going to make her pass out. He pressed his feet into the cliffside and pushed as hard as he could. For a moment, nothing but the air and the rope tethered him. But then gravity collided with his momentum and sent him back down to the cliffside. His feet caught him and he was moving before Courtney had a chance to even flinch. He pressed up against her from behind and locked his legs around her waist. She screamed and let go and he scrambled to get a hold around her middle before she could fight him and slip.

“He’s got her!” Buck heard from above.

“I’ve got you. I’ve got you!” Buck tried over her panicking. “Just put your arms around my neck.”

Courtney’s forearm clipped him in the chin as she spun around and clung to his shoulders, inconsolable and clumsy with weakness.

“Okay, that’s it. You’re good.” Buck murmured as he felt his neck growing wet with tears.

He waited for her to get a hold of his neck before pressing on. “I’m going to drop my legs, Courtney. When I do, I want you to wrap yours around my waist and hold on tight.”

“No!” The shriek that rang like shattered glass in his eardrum could be forgiven but Buck still winced.

“No!” Courtney screamed again, her body tensing with panic. “Don’t! You’ll drop me!”

“I’m not going to drop you but I’ve got to pull us back up---”

“No!”

But Courtney wasn’t hearing anything he was saying and her arms slipped past his neck and latched onto his harness.

_Click._

The sound was the quietest shot he’d ever heard but it was enough to send his heart plummeting down to his feet before the tension on the harness gave.

“Buck!” He heard Eddie shout as the weight on the line rushed past the freed carabiner on his harness. His world was abruptly and unapologetically weightless for a moment before he was teetering sideways.

Courtney screeched as his weight dipped to the side and his legs let go in surprise. He grabbed her wrist and felt something pop underneath his palm before his other arm felt like it was caught on fire.

“Buck! Buck!”

It was the shouting of his name that he could barely hear for him to realize he was screaming. The harness pulled painfully at his hips as all the blood in his body rushed to his head. He clamped his hand tighter around Courtney’s wrist and forced himself to take in a breath before the only thing keeping them from falling was the last carabiner on his harness and his grip with the rope snaked around his arm.

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry! Please don’t drop me! Please!” Courtney lifted her other hand and curled it around Buck’s and he tried to reassure her but all he could do was keep forcing himself to breathe before he passed out. Passing out would be bad. Super bad. There was nothing but jagged cliff edge and unforgiving water beneath them and if he passed out that’s where they were going.

But the rope constricting his arm burned like fibers were infused with the sun and he couldn’t---

“Hold on, Buck!” Bobby’s voice rang out through his walkie like he knew. He always knew.

“Just hold on! We’re coming!”

Buck couldn’t respond. He was too busy trying to keeping the world from greying out. The rope slid a little against his arm and somehow the burning turned wet with sweat or blood he didn’t know but he gritted his teeth and clamped down harder.

“Buck!” That was Bobby again but it was louder and less tinny and it took him a moment too long to realize it was because Bobby was scaling down the cliffside like his life depended on it.

“Take her!” Buck spit out from gritted teeth because his shoulders were being pulled into the uncomfortable field of unbearable pressure and if he dislocated his shoulder he was definitely going to pass out and drop her.

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” Courtney gasped out, her arms limp in Buck’s grasp.

“It’s okay,” Bobby said in that grounding way he always seemed to manage even in the worst situations. “Ma’am, I’m going to grab you. Whatever you do, _do not try to help me._ ”

The stretch of his shoulder was mounting and Buck let out a high-pitched sound from the back of his throat because he couldn’t bring himself to say any words to Bobby. Someone--- probably Bobby but at some point, the grey of his vision consumed him and he couldn’t see-- grabbed his harness and he swallowed a scream as the movement jostled his body into a sway.

It was building building _building._ The grasp he had on any control was steadily creeping away and he could _feel_ the joint starting to slip and he just hoped that he didn’t pull Eddie with him when it gave out and---

It was gone. Courtney’s weight was gone and Buck would’ve fallen head first with relief but his harness caught him.

“I got her, Buck,” Bobby said. “Pull us up!”

Then Buck felt the jolt of the roping pulling him up up up until he was over the cliffside and being dragged across concrete by too many pairs of hands. 

“Buck!” He heard before he passed out.

* * *

The pounding in his head was almost strong enough for him to ignore the rest of the aches and stings of his body. Almost.

The ice wrapped around his shoulder was starting to melt and send cold wet tendrils down the side of his back. It felt amazing but Buck couldn’t wait until he could get under the hot steady stream of the showers back at the station. It wasn’t dislocated thank whoever was up there looking out because if it had been then he would’ve been out for at least two weeks. But it was going to be sore and he could already feel the throbbing that was timed perfectly to the beating of his head. The headache had been there after Hen used the smelling salts to rouse him enough to get him into the ambulance with a hysterical Courtney. She’d apologized again and again through her endless crying. Buck had only been able to appease her so much before her sobbing made his head feel like he’d smashed his face against the cliffside over and over again.

But nothing compared to the massive rope burn snaking around his forearm.

Buck hissed out a wince as the doctor irrigated the burn again and used tweezers to pull out a piece of the rope fiber that’d melted into the skin. It was a nasty burn but thankfully only surface level and his hand had been spared from any damage.

“I thought we had this conversation about not seeing each other again,” Dr. Ossola said as he poked and prodded Buck’s burn to make sure he got all the fibers.

“Believe me, doc,” Buck said, wincing at the way the sound of his own voice made his head pulse. “This was not how I wanted that rescue to go.”

“What on earth happened?” The nurse asked with a tut of her tongue against the top of her mouth. 

Buck couldn’t help the small smile from pulling on his lips. Nurse Jocelyn had been his primary nurse every hospital stint he’d stayed since getting his leg crushed. Everyone liked to say that Buck charmed her but it couldn’t have been more backwards if he tried. Jocelyn was a no nonsense head nurse that put up with all his whining and moods with her own stubbornness. She’d stayed with him long past her shifts when the loneliness and anxiety had nearly crippled him some nights when his friends and Maddie had to leave. She called him Evan even though he insisted she call him Buck and found himself not really minding when it was from her. She’d physically lifted him off the floor despite her willowy stature and had propped him up again until he could make it to the bathroom on his own and back.

Buck shrugged as he watched Dr. Ossola and Nurse Jocelyn work in tandem. “She panicked. Grabbed onto my carabiner and unclipped part of my harness. It’s understandable though. Happens.”

“Well, it seems to happen to you a lot, Mr. Buckley.”

“Ouch! Are you calling me trouble?”

Jocelyn scoffed as she mopped up some of the freezing condensation that was still trailing down Buck’s back with a knowing smile. “He doesn’t have any room to talk.”

“What Nurse Jocelyn is alluding to is the fact that my wife took me to a skiing lesson last week for our anniversary where I promptly fell head over heels and got myself a wonderful set of stitches.” Dr. Ossola pointed up at his hairline with a smile before snapping off his gloves. “All right, you are all set. Jocelyn is going to bandage you up and give you a rundown of the instructions to keep this burn cleaned and I’m going to fill that prescription for antibiotics for you. Try not to do anything too strenuous with those arms but once the burn heals up you should be good as new. You know where to find me if anything comes up.”

“Thanks, Dr. Ossola.”

“Well, Evan,” Jocelyn said with a sigh when they were alone. “I’m afraid if you do what you're told and don’t push yourself too hard then you won’t even have a scar to show off to all your admirers.”

Buck felt the heat from his blush pool so fast in his face he almost passed out again from the head rush.

“One admirer right now and believe me, they’d rather I not scar at all so we’re good.”

Jocelyn pinned him with an unimpressed look as she lifted one long blonde eyebrow. “Not that Ali girl, right?”

Buck winced a little. “No. No, not Ali.”

It’s not that he was still stuck on her. He’d moved on, obviously, and he even understood where she came from. Committing to someone who might not come back is a big ask. A very big one. But that didn’t stop the tiny voice in his head late at night when he was alone and left with his thoughts that told him she was just another prime example about how he wasn’t enough to stick around for. That despite everything, _he_ wasn’t enough.

It still stung a little to be reminded of that.

“You know I was surprised to hear your name on my rounds today. After the way you took off without so much as a goodbye I would’ve thought you’d stay clear of this place,” Jocelyn said with a hum as she applied the cool ointment to his burn.

Buck winced again for an entirely different reason.

Jocelyn wasn’t often passive aggressive but then again Buck did sort of bolt without looking back the moment he threw off his hospital gown for the last time. She’d been his rock in more ways than he could count and while Dr. Ossola may have saved his leg, Jocelyn had saved Buck.

She’d even pulled a few strings to be his nurse when he had end up back into the hospital after he had, had his pulmonary embolism and gave him a pretty decent scolding that could’ve rivaled Maddie’s when she walked into his room. 

She’d been his biggest critic and his even bigger cheerleader at almost every milestone in his recovery. And Buck was only now realizing he’d basically cut and run without saying goodbye or a thank you.

As if he didn’t already feel like a terrible person.

“I’m sorry,” he said, watching as her long fingers worked to dress his arm.

“When the doc gave me that clean bill of health,” he added. “I just… It’d been complicated… getting back to my team.”

“I know,” Jocelyn said, working smoothly to hide his burn from sight. “I was there that day your captain told you they weren’t going to reinstate you. Is that what’s still complicated?”

Buck’s gaze shot up at her and she smiled that soft, thin smile he’d grown attached to whenever the casting around his leg seemed to be so hard and dragging and suffocating.

She rolled her eyes. “Remember what I told you that first night you were admitted and you tried to lie to me about your pain level?”

_You’re so full of shit, it’s a miracle your eyes aren’t brown._

She’d never let him lick his wounds in peace. She was always there to tend to them when he needed it.

“I can see something’s bother you, Evan.” She pressed. “And it isn’t just this burn or that headache you didn’t tell the doctor about.”

Buck shifted in his seat, feeling again like that little kid that hid against Maddie and played with the patterns on her sundress. 

He nodded and pulled back slightly. Something tight sat on his chest. He'd been able to put off thinking about his mom's cards but now he just felt tired and sore and he just wanted to shower and sleep and... forget about them some more.

“Yeah… I guess, it’s complicated too,” he said. “It’s just… stuff.”

He twisted his fingers and rubbed his eyebrow to give his hands something to do. He didn't want to keep going over it. Not with anyone. The only person who understood him when he talked about his parents was---

“Buck?” Athena’s head popped around the brief opening in the curtain and that weight on his chest felt like it crumpled at his feet.

* * *

“Hey ‘Thena.” Buck smiled tiredly at her and she felt relief finally settle the hammer of her heart. 

“They told me you were back here. I’m your ride back to the station.” She took in his rumpled hair, bandaged arm, and mostly melted ice on his shoulder and shook her head at the way it reminded her of that night he’d been on the losing end of a fight and bleeding all over Officer Hinds’ desk.

Buck opened his mouth in surprise.

“It’s not what it looks like,” he said with what had become their own private joke.

“Oh, so you mean to tell me you didn’t try to recreate a scene from Spider-Man on the side of a cliff?”

"I don't know what that means," Buck said with a frown. 

Somewhere in Los Angeles, Chimney was having a stroke. 

"And what's this I hear about you being assaulted on a scene and not notifying dispatch?" 

Buck was smart enough to turn a little sheepish. 

Buck's nurse looked at him sharply and Buck waved his hand. "Big guy. He just pushed me. I'm fine."

Athena snorted. 

“Well, he’s got a few more things he needs to sign and I’m going to go grab those antibiotics for you.” The nurse cut in before they could get too carried away. “Now, you know the deal. Keep it clean. Keep it dry. Don’t pop the blisters and don’t itch. If it starts to get infected, come back in. Maybe say goodbye this time when you do.”

Buck nodded and looked thoroughly scolded. “Thanks, Jocelyn.”

Athena recognized her from her visits when Buck was in the hospital for his leg but the blonde hurricane of a woman didn’t even spare Athena a glance as she left. She didn’t mind though.

She stepped up and helped him unwrap the ridiculous amounts of cellophane holding the ice to his shoulder. She hissed out a wince at the bruise that was creeping along the curve of his clavicle and curling into the depths of his armpit.

“I brought you this.” She held out his station hoodie and helped him slide his arm into the sleeve. It was going to be hot but it was easier than trying to put back on a t-shirt.

“Thanks for coming, Athena,” Buck said with a tired sigh.

She scoffed. “Where else would I be?”

They made quick work of getting Buck dressed and signing whatever forms he needed to sign before they were starting to make their way out of the hospital when the nurse--- Jocelyn, Buck said her name was--- called after him.

“I meant to give these to you the last time you were here but you ran off so fast,” she said, holding up two peach colored envelopes.

Buck ducked his head a little as his expression shattered and pushed a thumb up against the pink birthmark on his eyebrow.

Athena’s back stiffened at the motion. She’d known that little tic well but she hadn’t seen it make an appearance in Buck’s fidgets in a while.

“These came for you about a couple days after you were discharged,” Jocelyn said.

Buck looked like he was considering throwing himself in front of a bus rather than taking the cards.

“Oh.” Was all Buck said before giving her a small smile and taking them. “Thank you. For everything. Honest.”

Jocelyn waved them off and turned on her heel without another glance.

Buck followed her to her cruiser wordlessly and tapped the cards against each other in a rapid _tap tap tap_ before he peeled one open. Buck was frozen in his seat as he read it with his face impossibly still. But Buck’s stillness spoke louder than words sometimes and Athena could only watch as that thumb found itself back on his birthmark again.

When Bobby had asked her if she would be free to pick Buck up from the hospital while they were called out on another call, he’d warned her that Buck had been in a weird mood all day. But now that she could see him with her own eyes, it was easy to spot the hidden way Buck was slowly starting to spiral downward. All card-carrying members of the Lonely Hearts Club knew more than most the way things would start to spin out of control. Some got so used to it they didn’t even realize it was happening until it was too late to grab onto something. Buck tended to be the same. He was like a little kid stuck in the middle of a whirlpool. Always too busy having fun being included to notice that they were drowning.

She kept quiet though, as she navigated traffic and let Buck read the other card on his own with nothing more than a swallow.

It wasn’t until they were pulling into the parking lot of the small restaurant that he even looked up and said a word.

“What are we doing here?” He asked, frowning.

Athena threw her cruiser in park and turned the ignition. “Getting dinner. You missed yours and Bobby says they’re still out on a call so we’ve got some time. Come on!”

She didn’t wait to see if Buck would follow her--- she knew he would because the jokes of Buck being part golden retriever were only half jokes--- and slipped into a booth that gave her a nice view of the street. The days had grown longer as May rolled around but the bustling streets of Los Angeles always took on a cool purple when the sun went down. Buck slid into the opposite side of the booth from her, all long legs and stiff movements in his shoulder.

She gave him until they ordered before she fixed him with a look and he wilted a little beneath it.

“I got a card from my mom,” he said, tearing at the damp napkin under his water glass with his fingers. “A couple actually.”

He pulled out one from his pocket and slid it over to her. 

Athena lifted her brow. A card shouldn’t be anything other than a pleasant surprise but with Buck… well, complicated didn’t even begin to cut it.

It was a pretty card. The front was a blue and purple water colored lilac on nice card stock that felt bumpy under her fingertips. 

_You got this. Love, Your Mom._

Six words. Six words was all it took to jab at that bruised heart on Buck's sleeve. 

“Guess she sent some to the hospital too.” He added with a shrug. 

A wet bark of a laugh slipped past his lips as he shook his head.

“She even sent a cookie bouquet to the station.”

“I didn’t realize you’d been in contact lately,” Athena said evenly.

But Buck shook his head again and she couldn’t help but frown.

“We haven’t. This was all just so… random.” He slid his hands flat on the table when the napkin was beyond destroyed as his face pinched. “I don’t… know why I'm getting them all today or what but I don’t really know what it’s supposed to mean?”

He asked her like she knew and she hated Buck’s mother a little more that a simple card from her was enough to split him in two.

“Does it have to mean something?” She asked, trying to give him something to consider even though she doubted it.

The waiter dropped two warm cups of coffee in front of them with a promise that their food would be out soon. Buck pushed out a sigh as he cradled the cup into his palm, giving his hands something else to do again, while he poured in an unhealthy amount of sugar. It was one of his only vices though, and they were both still in the middle of two very long shifts. Athena wasn’t due off until two in the morning and Buck was due back for his twenty-four hour shift until the next afternoon.

“It always means something with my mom,” Buck mumbled. “I don’t know. I don’t know if I’m looking too much into it or…I don’t know if she’s trying to guilt me about Mother’s Day or what. I mean she’s never cared about it before but…”

He let the sentence trail off with a shrug.

Blue eyes looked up from impossibly long lashes up at her and Athena took a sip of her coffee carefully. Motherhood was the definition of complicated. It shouldn’t be but it was. She had her opinions, biased as they were, from what Buck had shared with her. But you never get in between the rock and a hard place when it comes to a child and their feelings towards their mother.

“Have you called her?”

Buck’s head dropped down again and his shoulders pulled up to his ears.

* * *

Buck hadn’t heard from his mom since he’d… Buck had allowed himself one moment of weakness when he’d been laid up with a busted leg and was alone in his apartment with nothing but the couch to hold any source of comfort. He’d called her and asked--- he had to ask--- if his mom could come stay for a few days.

She’d said she’d tried but it just didn’t work out.

She’d laughed when she’d said that.

Oh well.

Didn’t work out.

You wouldn’t need me anyway.

You’re an adult, she’d said.

But the sting of the rejection that throbbed almost as bad as his leg hadn’t been that she didn’t come. To be honest, he wasn’t even surprised. It was that she’d let him hope because she never outright said no.

And like a sucker, he’d hoped.

Buck had cried himself to sleep that night.

Maddie had showed up the next morning with donuts and took control of the Roku remote so that they could silently power through the entire first season of _The West Wing._ He didn’t know if his sister was psychic or if his mom had called her but she always knew. Maddie always tried to make it better.

So, no he didn’t call his mom and thank her for the cards that seemed to pick today of all days to shower him in mixed signals and misplaced affection. Maybe that made him a terrible person. It definitely made him a terrible person. But a part of him didn’t want to thank her for an ounce of attention after months of silence.

“You know why people call me, Buck?” He asked instead of answering.

He took a sip of his coffee to settle his nerves.

“I… _hate_ how my mom says my name,” he admitted. “Like… I’ve already annoyed her before I’ve even said anything.”

He’d never said that out loud before. Not even to Maddie. It felt like shards of glass cut at his tongue at the admission. But Athena always seemed to just get it. He didn’t have to explain anything to her. With her, it was easy to talk about everything than it was with his own mother and that was… he was finally starting to acknowledge how messed up that was.

“Buck,” Athena said as she covered his hand with her own and stopped the tapping of his fingers that he didn’t realize he’d been doing.

And it’s the complete opposite of how his mom had ever said his name. It’s not _Evan,_ like a hissed out sigh that’s already tired of you.

It’s Buck. Athena’s tongue clicks at the top of her mouth whenever she says his name like she’s caught between a laugh and something else. Something warm.

He’d started to notice the difference the night he’d showed up at the precinct, tired as hell and covered in blood and bruises.

He blinked back the hot press against his eyes and tried to swallow back the rest of his coffee.

Rationally, he knew why her just saying his name was enough to break him right then and there. His mom always had this way of reeling him in just enough for him to get comfortable before she did something that cut in the right place that left him flailing for weeks. She’d dropped into his life four times --- _four---_ that day with four seemingly innocent cards and suddenly the ground didn’t feel so stable anymore.

But Athena’s hand on his was solid. He felt like his own personal earthquake was shaking it up enough that he might lose her grip again and without saying anything Athena squeezed.

Buck blew out another breath from his lips. He hated that his mom doing something nice was enough to rock his world. He hated that part of him still hoped that it was just that. Something nice.

But a big part of him, hated himself a little for feeling like he was being forced to choose his family and his _family._ His real family. The one he saw almost every day. The one that had Bobby and Athena and Hen and Chim and Maddie and Eddie and the one he knew he would choose in a heartbeat.

Athena tapped his knuckle with her finger.

He looked up at her and worried his bottom lip with his teeth because he didn’t say any of that out loud but he knew she knew anyway.

“It’s not your job to take on the baggage of your mother,” she said. “Your job is to love with that big heart hanging on your sleeve there. Unequivocally and unguarded like you do with everyone else. Because you don’t have to like her to love her.”

And that was it, wasn't it. He did love his mother. But he just didn't really like her that much and he'd spent years feeling like such a terrible person for floating in that realization. He'd spent so long trying and nothing ever worked. 

“It just hurts,” he said, thick and open. “A lot.”

“I know,” Athena said with a nod because she did know. Buck knew that and it was still so astounding that of all the people to just _get_ it, it was Athena. Strong, fierce Athena who loved as hard as she hit and had been in his same shoes once.

“But she doesn’t get to take that from you.” She pressed. “Do you understand? She doesn’t get to take the best part of you because you’re afraid to get hurt again. You continue to love in spite of her and you leave the guarding of that heart to me.”

"It's so stupid," he whispered, feeling like he was cracking apart. 

"It's not," Athena said, pressing him back together and validating his feelings even when his own brain wouldn't. 

And just like that, Athena somehow found a way to balm the raw burning that had itched its way under his skin. The heaviness that had settled on his shoulders was a little lighter and the primal instinct that took over where he felt like that kid hiding against Maddie’s neck released enough for him to peek his head out in the world.

“You can call her and thank her for the cards or not,” Athena said. “But you get to decide if there was something more or if it was just something nice she wanted to do for her son. Okay?”

Buck smiled a little and nodded. “Okay.”

* * *

Their dinner was free of nervous birthmark rubbing and small feelings and Athena couldn’t help but feel a little lighter as they stood from the booth. She shouldn’t because the burger she had, had been the size of her head but Buck always managed to fix everything by getting people to laugh. Even himself sometimes. She’d laughed when Buck told her the teasing he got after his crew found out about his upcoming date. She’d laughed when he told her about how he even thought he would get away with throwing some pepper jack on the charcuterie board. And she’d laughed when Buck finally let out one of his nasally snickers at a story she told him about the time on their fourth date Michael had eaten such bad cheese he didn’t stop farting for hours.

Buck may be blessed with baby blues that could melt steel and a smile to boot but his laugh was one of a kind.

“Now,” Athena said as Buck held the door open for her and they stepped their way into the parking lot. “Do you have all the ingredients for the sauce?”

“I’m heading to the store after my shift. Are you sure the pomegranate juice is going to taste good on chicken?”

Athena waved her hand. “It’s going to mix with the balsamic and basil nicely so it won’t be too overpowering. I’m on duty that night but barring any natural disasters or other foolishness, just give me a call if it gives you any trouble and I’ll walk you through it.”

Buck nodded as he clapped his hands together in front of him. Athena smiled as he bounced ahead of her, letting those long legs carry him halfway across the parking lot in less time than anyone else. Athena pulled out her keys and unlocked her SUV with a sharp beep.

“Hey, do you think I need bread for---” Whatever Buck was going to say died on his lips as he turned back towards her and grabbed her by her arms. He pulled hard enough to knock her off her feet but she couldn’t even find it in herself to be irritated as a car sped past her and flew from the parking lot.

“What the hell?” She cried out.

“Are you okay?”

But Athena pushed him away to rush to the end of the parking lot.

“Dispatch!” Athena pulled her radio up from her chest. “We’ve got a possible 390. Suspect driving a four-door green Honda Civic. Partial license plate is Roger Tango 3-4 Nelson Echo. They took off north of Belmont and Cisco. Driver almost ran over an on duty police officer and firefighter.”

“Copy Sergeant Grant,” Dispatch said. “Do you need an RA unit to your location?”

She gave Buck a cursory glance but other than his obvious amping up for a car chase that was never going to happen, he was fine.

“We’re fine.”

She waited a moment to listen to what units were responding before she turned back to Buck.

“Thanks for the save, Buckaroo,” she said with a sigh. “Let’s get you back before Bobby sends out a search party.”

Buck frowned as confusion pulled down his face. “Shouldn’t you go after them?”

She couldn’t help the small clicking off her tongue in a cut off chortle at his obvious disappointment.

Firefighters.

Smoke fueled adrenaline junkies held together by tape.

“And bring you and your Buckley luck? Not a chance!”

* * *

“ _Hey mom, it’s B-Evan. I uh… I got your cards… and the cookies… Thank you for that. Um…Sorry I haven’t called in a while. I’ll uh… I guess, I’ll call you later._

_…_

_Thank you. Again. For the cards._

_They were really nice._

_…_

_Love you.”_

* * *

Athena had been right. Buck felt lighter after he hung up the phone and the sting that he’d been sent to voicemail was all but nonexistent. Whatever reason his mom decided that now was when she wanted to remind him of her existence with a few pieces of cardstock, he didn’t have to let it rock his world. He could decide that it was just something nice that his mom felt like doing. Everything else was on her. It still amazed him how Athena could snip the twisted web he always seemed to tangle himself with a few simple words.

But Athena was right. His mom was always going to be his mom and despite everything… despite all the resentment and hurt feelings, he was always going to love her. Maybe he didn’t like her but loving her was something he couldn’t change.

So, he called her. He swallowed the bitterness before it could drown him and said thank you and finally the world stopped spinning.

His body was tired and sore after his shift as he hefted the grocery bag in his arms. After a house fire that woke them in the middle of the night, an accident on the freeway, a kid getting his hand stuck a sewer grate, and then another accident on the freeway, Buck was ready to drop on his bed and sleep for a good eight to nine hours. Maddie had insisted on dinner and then a trip to the wine and cheese store after his shift ended at four. Buck was pretty sure it was because she was still trying to weasel out more information about his date but now that he knew it was driving her a little crazy, it was a lot easier to keep tight lipped about it.

Baby brother purgative and all that.

Now that he had a bag full of approved cheeses, a full stomach, and all the ingredients he needed for a nice dinner the next night Buck was beat. It was dark by the time he pulled into his apartment building and even darker in the hallway as he struggled to pull his keys out. The burn on his arm stung as he flexed his forearm and he bite back a groan at the uncomfortable stretch pulled on his skin. He was going to need to clean it and add more ointment before he went to bed.

He finally reached his door with a sigh and fumbled to put the key into the lock but after his third try he was able to open his door with a push of his toe.

Buck dropped his duffle the moment he stepped foot into his apartment and zeroed in on the very clear navigation course of kitchen for groceries, bathroom for ointment, and bed for bed.

Everything stopped. His brain froze into a nonresponsive white screen over his eyes at once. He couldn’t feel. He couldn’t hear. He couldn’t see. He couldn’t think.

He couldn’t breathe.

Everything stopped.

And then as if someone swung a bat against his head, everything crashed in on him at once with a ringing of static in his ear before everything went dark and he fell to the floor.


End file.
